Basketball games between Flushing and Flint Northwestern will begin counting toward league championships in 2012-13. (Joseph Tobianski | The Flint Journal)

A long ordeal for the remaining four schools in the Big Nine Conference will end in the 2012-13 school year when they begin competing in the Saginaw Valley Conference.

Big Nine survivors Flint Carman-Ainsworth, Davison, Flushing and Flint Powers Catholic were admitted to the Valley, along with independent Flint Northwestern, in a 10-0 vote of current Valley schools Tuesday.

Those five schools will compete in a southern division of the Valley, along with long-time Valley members Flint Northern and Flint Southwestern. The northern division will consist of Saginaw, Saginaw Arthur Hill, Saginaw Heritage, Bay City Central, Bay City Western, Midland, Midland Dow and Mount Pleasant.

The school boards at each of the prospective new Valley members must still approve of the move, which is expected to be a mere formality.

“It’s been quite a long travail, is all I can say,” Carman-Ainsworth athletic director and boys’ basketball coach Bob Root said. “We spent all last year trying to do something to form a league in this area. That still, I believe, is the way things probably should be. We should be in a league formed with schools our size in our own immediate area. Once we had four teams for a number of years now, this is probably the best option for us to do something with the Valley.”

Beecher was removed from the Big Nine in 2002-03 before a mass exodus of schools began with Clio’s defection to the Metro League in 2005-06. Swartz Creek, Owosso and Kearsley and Grand Blanc would eventually leave the Big Nine within the next four years.

“If the Valley didn’t work out, then we were going to stick together and explore other options,” Davison athletic director Josh Wallberg said. “The four schools have talked about it together. We kind of wanted to stay together and not have any team go independent.”

Northwestern has been independent since leaving the Valley in 2002 after 33 years in the league because its enrollment dropped to a Class C level. The Wildcats have been Class A the last three school years.

The quality of athletic programs at those five schools was part of the attraction for Valley schools that voted them in, but financial considerations are more important than ever with potential decreases in state funding for schools and the meteoric rise in gas prices.

Under the new Valley alignment, the northernmost schools in the league will make fewer long trips to Flint. In sports like hockey played by less than 12 member schools, there will be one overall league. In sports played by at least 12 schools, there will be two divisions.

In basketball, for instance, division rivals will play each other twice and will play two games against teams from the other division. There will not be a league championship game at the end because of concerns teams could meet in the league final, then a few days later in districts.

“Finances definitely had a strong driving force in this decision,” said Pete Ryan, executive director of the Valley and the athletic director of Saginaw Township Community Schools. “For all of us, it’s getting very expensive to transport kids. Many of us have cut back on transportation. This will help us from a cost perspective by reducing the amount of travel schools are doing.”

Big Nine members and Northwestern applied for admission to the Valley in August. Early in the school year, it became apparent that nothing would be able to happen in time for 2011-12.

“We originally looked at doing it, but there was just so much to get your hands around that it wasn’t going to work to try to ram it,” Ryan said. “We didn’t want to do it wrong. We wanted to go through the process and do it the right way. That’s why it look a little longer than expected. We wanted to have our ducks in a row first within the league before we expanded.”

Under the new alignment, there will be two divisions in baseball, boys’ and girls’ basketball, football, volleyball, softball, wrestling, boys’ and girls’ soccer, boys’ and girls’ track and field, and boys’ and girls’ tennis.

There will be one division in hockey, boys’ and girls’ bowling, boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, and boys’ and girls’ swimming.

In football, the seven-team southern division schools will play a nonconference game the first week, a crossover game with the other division the second week, then will play one more nonconference game during the season, in addition to their six division games.

"We're just really excited about the opportunity to get into the Saginaw Valley, it being such a prestigious league and around for a long time," Flushing athletic director Denny Noe said. "We play a lot of the Saginaw Valley teams anyway, so it's just an opportunity to really expand what we do with them. We're really looking forward to it. It's going to be great for our kids and community. ... I just wish it was happening next year."

The admission of four Big Nine teams to the Valley will mean the end of a league that began has the Genesee County Big Eight in 1960-61. The Valley formed in 1904 with five schools.

“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Root said. “It’s the end of the Big Nine, as long as the boards approve this. I’ve got mixed emotions about that. It was a great conference. To me, it’s sad the way things had a domino effect and ended up the way they did. That’s the way it is. We’ve got to move on. This is the next-best thing for our kids, and we’re going to look ahead to that.”